The invention relates generally to power-driven conveyors and more particularly to belt conveyors having sensors embedded in the conveyor belt.
Conveyor belts are used to convey bulk food products, such as corn and peas, through processing devices, such as blanchers, cookers, coolers, and freezers. The products rest on the conveyor belt's outer conveying surface in a mass. It is often important that the processing device process the product mass uniformly through its depth or that all products undergo at least a minimum level of processing. For example, a cooking process may require that the temperature at any point in the product mass reach a minimum level. In the case of a bed of product on a conveyor belt advancing through a cooker, products somewhere in the middle of the bed's depth are at a cold spot where the temperature reaches the minimum temperature level last. One way to ensure that the products at the cold spot of the bed are adequately heated is to overheat the products. But that wastes energy and affects the quality of the products by overcooking those outside the cold spot.
Thus, there is a need to improve the quality of bulk products conveyed through a processing device.